This is not going to be well written, of that I am sure. It’s late at night, I’m tired, and I have computer access for just a short time. I apologize ahead of time…
The past few weeks have been very stressful. We left behind our 7 bedroom home, moved completely out, cleaned it spotless and put it up for sale.
We moved onto our land far before we should have and set up camp, literally, with six of the kids. Robin sleeps in a tent. Billy sleeps in a tent which he proudly calls his two-room-mansion. Mya and the three small boys sleep in an old run down travel trailer we picked up for pennies and cleaned the mold from. I am sleeping in the loft of our incomplete 20×36 cabin, which is actually quite comfortable if you discount the fact that we STILL have gable ends with no sheeting because I am afraid of heights and the wind and mosquitos think that’s an invitation. And until two days ago, we had no front door.
When Dan is home from work next week we will put the tin on the roof, wire the generator to the cabin and have flushing toilets, if no water with which to flush them.
Truth be told, our money is tight, we need $9000 for a well, a new generator and some groceries in storage before winter and it’s not looking promising. Not that we won’t have the well…it just might be drilled through frost or snow sometime in October. We’ll live.
Oh, I’m not complaining, mind you. Because as my older kids remind me daily, “You wanted this…”, therefore my gripe-rights are null and void. I simply have to bite my tongue, smile and nod, smile and nod, when people ask how things are coming along.
They are coming along… just a bit more slowly than we’d imagined, but coming along none the less.
Yesterday I found myself more frustrated than usual and when Dan called from whatever arctic oasis he has found himself in for his shift, I was less than pleasant. I normally try not to complain when he calls. After all, he works 12 plus hour days for weeks at a time and rarely lets off steam. But last night I needed to vent. And so I let him have it.
He listened, heard me out, and empathized with my plight. Are we making a huge mistake, I wondered? Did we plunge in based on fantasy and now reality closes in with the coming of winter? Should we just move back into the big house? What about going south? Perhaps some sun is the answer, maybe camp out through the winter in a nice condo on a beach…now that sounds nice, doesn’t it? I laid out my list of complaints like a rug at his weary feet, hoping he’d climb aboard my rampage. He listened, we said our goodnights and I began to plot my escape.
And then my dear husband, who for over twenty years has calmed my storms, who should have been fast asleep by then, resting for the next day of work, sent me the following text:
“Homestead Survival page just asked, ‘What would you do with 30 acres?’ Looking at the replies, most readers see that as Heavenly and completely out of reach. They can’t even dream of such a thing. We have 40. It’s ours. We need to remember how blessed we are, and that we know hard work pays off in the end. We are both mentally and physically fatigued…but we are living our dream.”
And he’s right, of course. He always is. I rarely talk about him on this site, because he really prefers me not to. I don’t blame him…I know a lot of secrets. But once in a while, I just need to say thanks. He is the backbone of this family, the unsung hero, and my dream-sharer for life.
